Wednesday, October 30, 2013

October 30, 2013 - Occupational Hazard

Last week Kristoffer was traveling through rural parts of Tanzania for a mission on water hygiene and sanitation. The ultimate irony was, of course, that he came home with a wretched bacterial infection and amoeba. When Kristoffer posted on his Facebook that he was hospitalized for it, which he was, someone asked me what was wrong with him.

The best way I can describe it to an American audience of people about my age: remember playing Oregon Trail on the computer about 20-25 years ago? And there were all these things that your people could die of while on the Oregon Trail? Yeah...so Kristoffer had most of those things (no, did not drown in the river because he decided to caulk the wagon). High fever, nasty stuff going on in his stomach, super dehydrated.

The other downside of this is that he has never been so sick in his life, so he wasn't very good at it. When I told him that the doctor said he had to stay all day on Sunday and overnight until Monday before she would let him go home, he started yelling at me and saying that he would just drink a lot of water at home. Riiiight. Nevermind those pesky life-saving IV antibiotics. He told her the next day how mad he was and she told him, "That's because you couldn't see yourself with your eyeballs sunk into your head." Classy.

Anyway, it wasn't a very fun time, but he survived it and is doing very well now. And my husband is such a giving man that he GAVE me his bacterial infection. Despite what we tell the kids, sometimes I think sharing is NOT caring!

So I ended up at the doctor's office yesterday with stabbing pains in my stomach - not fun at 15 weeks pregnant! - and some other symptoms as well. They determined that I was starting with the same bacterial infection and put me on antibiotics right away. I stayed in bed all day yesterday and am still there now...gearing up for 2 full days of teaching the rest of this week. Feeling pretty good, and rather lazy frankly.

Needless to say, we survived another round of THAT here in East Africa. Whenever it is that we don't live here anymore, experiences like these are ones that I will not miss for sure!